1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to medical treatment devices, and in particular such devices which can be readily reconfigured for use by medical attendants having different levels of training.
2. Description Of The Related Art
With recent changes to the medical industry, patients are treated by teams of individuals having specialized assignments and corresponding specialized levels of training. In order to conserve resources and to minimize the cost of patient care, medical care givers are using automated or semi-automated equipment to an increasing extent to help them more efficiently address a patient's needs.
Whereas medical treatment in the past was administered in a controlled setting, such as that of a hospital or medical emergency clinic, medical care is increasingly administered in a wide variety of uncontrolled field conditions. Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) are now routinely employed in police and fire departments and various military units as well as ambulance and other first responder private service providers. In an era of increasing specialization and cost controls, it has been found desirable to employ EMTs having a level of training corresponding to the anticipated need for structured patient services.
One particularly important service provided by EMTs and other first responders is to deliver immediate medical attention in critical life threatening conditions, often occurring remote from hospitals or other controlled environments. Ears and other emergency care givers may be called upon to provide a number of different patient treatments, including monitoring cardiac activity and other vital patient conditions, administering drugs and other treatments as well as performing a variety of invasive and non-invasive diagnostic procedures.
Recent improvements have been made to medical treatment devices suitable for providing defibrillator therapy on an emergency basis. Most notably, manufacturers of such medical treatment devices have been able to incorporate expert analytical capability with transthoracic cardiac defibrillation so that care givers having little or no training can successfully administer cardiac defibrillator treatment in emergency situations where defibrillator intervention must be carried out within minutes to preserve a patient's life. Various legislative bodies have recognized the value of such medical intervention and the ability of automatic and semi-automatic external defibrillator devices to control shock therapy to the point where members of the general public can successfully intervene to preserve life in the midst of a cardiac emergency.
Patient monitoring equipment has also become automated to an increasing extent. Recent improvements in such equipment have found ready acceptance in hospital environments to aid in the reduction of the cost of patient care. Such equipment may be relied upon to provide relatively benign, non-intrusive observance of a patient's medical condition. The flexibility and safety record of such automated equipment has encouraged the use of automated equipment to also carry out more sensitive intrusive medical treatments. Due to the cost of construction, maintenance and routine expert calibration and other maintenance, such automated medical care devices have generally been limited to special purpose applications in an attempt to reduce costs.
Frequently, automated patient monitoring equipment is set up to automatically record various types of patient data observed on sensors coupled to the device. For certain medical treatment operations, such data may be recorded but not actually used at the time of the medical treatment, especially when care givers having lower levels of training are able to carry out their mission with assistance from expert functions of the device. Various types of data unrelated to the automated procedure may nonetheless be recorded and later downloaded for storage with the patient's records. It would be best if such data were not generated or, alternatively, certain warnings and precautions were implemented to avoid erroneous conclusions.
There is continuing interest in evaluating automated or semi-automated medical treatment devices, with a view toward expanding their role in reducing medical costs.